Looksmaxxing

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated Incel message boards (online forums for 'involuntary celibate' men), later TikTok · Also known as Looksmax; Softmaxxing; Hardmaxxing; Looksmaxxer

What it is

Looksmaxxing is the practice of making your face and body as attractive as possible, as worked out by young men online. 'Maxxing' comes from video games, where players 'max out' a character's stats. It splits into softmaxxing (skincare, haircuts, gym, losing weight) and hardmaxxing (steroids, growth hormone, starvation diets, jaw surgery). Practitioners score faces on a numbered scale called PSL and pick apart features like jawlines, cheekbones and the tilt of the eyes.

Where it came from

The word was coined on incel message boards in the 2010s. Incels were men who gathered online to talk about not being able to find partners, and many believed in the 'black pill': the idea that women choose almost entirely on looks and height, so an unattractive man is doomed. Looksmaxxing was the answer for those who still wanted to try. It stayed on niche forums for years. In the early 2020s young men on TikTok, a short video app, turned it into a mass trend with before and after clips and face ratings. By 2025 livestreamers such as Clavicular had built careers on it.

Why it mattered

For the men who did it, it offered a score and a plan, which felt like control over a painful thing: not being found attractive. It also mattered because it carried incel ideas to ordinary teenagers inside harmless-looking grooming tips. Doctors and journalists warned about body dysmorphia, teenage steroid use and the fake science behind the PSL scale. The suffix escaped completely, so people talked about 'sleepmaxxing' or 'moneymaxxing' with no idea where it began. In 2026 Clavicular reportedly overdosed during a livestream after taking a five-drug mix called the 'pentastack', which drew wide coverage.

What noah thinks it shows about us

It shows how an idea from the angriest corners of the internet reached ordinary teenagers once it looked like a skincare routine. It also shows young men turning their own faces into numbers to compete over, half as a joke and half meaning it.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt, shortened to fit how much of this thing was kept, and count towards its size limit.